


Jedem Gibt er das Seine

by Fyre



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-16
Updated: 2010-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rudolf find out what manner of friend Death may be.</p><p>Written for Puel in the 2008 Yuletide Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jedem Gibt er das Seine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Puel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Puel).



**Die Schatten werden länger**

As far back as he could remember, mama was absent and his friend was with him. In the dark when he cried, the arms that held him were not the arms of a man, but the arms of something far greater, something even more powerful than a Kaiser.

The voice was strong and certain, something Rudolf wished to be, but did not know how. That was what Father should have been like. The man who was not a man was strong without trying, bold, decisive, not forced by the views of others.

He would laugh, when Rudolf spoke of his Father.

"The old days are passing," he said, one arm thrown around Rudolf's shoulder as they walked the halls of the Hofburg. "Old ways, like old men, should die. Do you want to be forced into their path?" A broad hand slapped him on the shoulder. "You know you have so many ideas. When he goes, that will be your chance to use them."

"He will be around for many years to come," Rudolf said darkly. He knew he should not speak so of his own Father, his blood, but Father was only a title for a distant man who only acknowledged him over matters of business.

"Ah, yes," his friend laughed again. "That damned Habsburg longevity."

"It's no laughing matter," Rudolf snapped.

He was suddenly pushed against a wall, the shadows closing on them and he grabbed at his friend's shirtfront.

"I think it is, little Rudolf," his friend said quietly, still smiling, but it wasn't reaching his eyes anymore. "You only need to know what to do. Who to call on. What to say." Blue eyes glittered dangerously. "You wrote, didn't you?"

Rudolf nodded defiantly, gripping the shirt tight, pulling his friend closer. "I told you I would do what was necessary."

His friend's smile was suddenly close to his face, close to his lips, and the breath on his skin was cold, icy. "Writing is one thing," he said softly. "Do you have the will to act on what was marked in ink?"

"What is necessary," Rudolf replied through gritted teeth. If his friend doubted his strength, who wouldn't? He would show them all that he could act for the betterment of the Empire.

The darkness closed more deeply until there was only blackness and quiet laughter.

 

**Wenn ich dein Spiegel wär**

 

It had all gone wrong.

The identity of the writer of the paper was discovered, and Rudolf found himself brought before his Father. The disapproval of his actions from a man who had become the embodiment of inaction was more galling than he could say. The anger of a disappointed father, however, was even worse.

The world would know of it. He knew they would. Nothing was sacred or secret within the walls of the Hofburg, even if you believed it was. Ears were everywhere, and even if his Father had not raised his voice in fury, it would have spread like wildfire through the palace.

None would acknowledge it to his face, of course, but they would all know.

He walked blindly through the halls. He wished his friend were here. He would know what to say, counsel him in what to do next. He always had so many ideas of ways that Rudolf could move the Empire towards what it should be, away from the ancient monstrosity it had become.

His hand rose and knocked on a door before he even realised where he was.

One of his mother's women looked out at him. They always gazed at him with the same expression: a measure of barely masked pity, but also impatience to return to their Lady.

"It is your son, my Lady."

If she assented to see him, he didn't hear the words. He rarely heard her speak louder than the whisper she had become famed for. Something was said, however, and he entered the rooms.

She sat at her desk, gazing at the page before her. She wrote, though not as he had.

What did she think of his work, he wondered. Did she approve? Did she even know? In the closed-off world she was building about herself, away from him, away from his Father, away from reality, did she even notice anything anymore?

"Mother."

Her pen moved slowly, scratching on the paper, then lifted from the page and she raised her head with a sigh. "Rudolf."

It still sent a thrill down his spine when she deigned to say his name. It was so rare, to see her, to hear her.

He approached and sat on the narrow chair beside her desk, laying his hand on the lined surface.

She looked at him, eyes dark. He wondered what went on behind them. She gave nothing away with her expression. She had made herself a mask. Perhaps she had forgotten what she was like without it.

"Your father is angry, I hear," she said finally.

Rudolf nodded. "He was," he said quietly, looking down.

To his surprise, a thin, fragile hand touched his knuckles lightly, and he looked up to his mother's face.

"Good," she said, and he was sure he saw something like approval in her eyes. "It has been a long time since someone made him so."

Then it was gone, and she took up her pen once more.

It was not much, but it was enough.

 

**Mayerlingwalzer**

 

Things had not changed.

His wife frustrated and tired him. His father refused permission to seek an annulment to an unhappy marriage. His mother vanished off on journeys for months at a time. Even Gisela was far from them, though he wrote to her. He wrote to all of them from time to time, but writing was all he could ever do.

Distractions were easily found: women for his bed, wine for his table, hunts for his friends and morphine for the ache that clung to the back of his mind as it had from childhood.

Action was damn near impossible.

Whatever he did, he was fenced in by the old ways. His friend shook his head sadly, as if it was Rudolf's fault the empire was trapped in a rut. It was a furrow ploughed too deep and he was trapped in it, unable to climb out alone, and pulled back whenever he tried.

He said as much, exhausted and miserable on a retreat to his latest acquisition, a lodge in Mayerling.

His friend snorted. "You're as bad as your father, if you don't do something."

"Don't you ever say that!" he cried back.

Again, he was pushed to a wall, the glittering eyes and golden hair and flushed skin suggesting mortality in a man who was anything but. "But I do, little Rudolf," his friend hissed through gleaming teeth. "You don't fight hard enough. Look at your dear mama. She does exactly what she wills. What do you do? Give up?"

"She takes an eternity to decide to do nothing but run!" Rudolf exclaimed.

Blue eyes gleamed. "But she is still doing something."

"I do what I can," Rudolf argued, but his voice was weaker.

"Yes, yes," his friend laughed again, quiet and cruel. "With whores and guns. That's how you will end, if you don't do something soon. Your father will live forever and you will die in bed in some hunting lodge like this, stupefied by drink and the pox."

He had grown more vicious lately, more vindictive and malevolent.

With every worsening headache, his friend seemed to grow more menacing.

"I try," he protested, but all at once he was alone.

He tried, he knew he did, but he knew it would never be enough. It would be like moving a mountain with his bare hands, and fight and struggle as he might, neither words nor actions seemed to move his Father.

Sometimes, he wondered on his friend's words. Dying. It had rarely crossed his mind before, but now, it was all he could think on. In the nights, when terrors spurred by morphine woke him, he would stare blindly at the shuttered windows, and wonder what that peace would be like.

Living was meant to be wondrous, where one could make changes. One could do that anywhere but Austria. England had its Queen with her growing Empire in Asia and Germany had that damned new Kaiser with his wild ideas and plans that no one tried to prevent.

Why were they able to do so much, yet he could do nothing?

No. Not nothing.

He could live or he could die. That was the only matter in which he had any choice.

It was a choice he had not been aware of, until his friend spoke of his end.

Death.

Would it be so terrible? Perhaps, it would be enough to move his Father, impel him to push through the changes Rudolf had called for. It could be a tribute to him, he thought. Perhaps it would draw his mother home too, at last.

He spoke of it to Stephanie one evening in the summer, as Erszi played under the watchful eye of her nurse. His wife didn't understand at all, even though he explained why it would be the only way forward. She understood little, and she took his hand and suggested he should speak with the doctor, for he seemed tired.

He laughed quietly.

He was tired, she was right, but he knew what he had to do.

The only trouble was that he could not do it alone. He had hoped Stephanie would agree, because surely, it would show how much he wanted to make amends for the sickness he brought on her. If he chose her above all his other women, surely that would mean something.

The silly creature thought he was being dramatic and even went to the chief of the police. Taeffe approached him and asked quietly what his wife was speaking of, and Rudolf smiled, saying she must be making up tales.

His true choice, the one he approached with greater hope was Mitzi. Though they had never exchange promises of any kind, he knew she loved him, and he offered her the chance to spur the greatest change in the Empire's history with him.

Taeffe approached him again, barely days later.

He was beginning to lose hope when a pretty little creature with dark tumbling hair, large eyes and an expression that spoke of utter devotion fell into his path. Maria. Mary. She hung on his every word and smiled and laughed and nodded in agreement with everything he said.

His friend approved the moment he met her, smiling for the first time in months, which made Rudolf smile in turn. He said she was the perfect companion.

Rudolf was inclined to agree.

When he told her about his plan for the changes that needed to be made, she gasped in wonder and told him it was the most romantic and brave thing she had ever heard. That was when he knew she was the right person and he kissed her there and then, even if he was imagining she was Mitzi.

It would be the two of them, changing the Empire for the better.

It was all arranged, prepared, and he even ignored his headache long enough to go hunting too. His friends smiled and didn't know what a part they were about to play in the changing of the world.

When the night came, Mary waited for him in the bedroom, on the bed, and told him she loved him. That was unnecessary, he thought, but it was appreciated. He drew her closer to him, her dark hair spread over his arm, and a gun he had borrowed from one of his friends in his other hand.

"Are you ready?" he asked, knowing how right it all was.

She nodded, closing her eyes. He put the barrel of the gun against her temple.

He saw his friend standing by the bed, smiling, eyes gleaming by the candlelight, as his finger tightened on the trigger, and he cried out in surprise. The gun jerked in his hand, and Mary jerked against his arm.

His friend leaned down, smiling widely, and kissed her, blood on her skin staining his teeth.

"Good boy," he said, smiling again. He stroked Mary's face as if she were a cat. "I told you she was perfect for you. Who else would be stupid enough to let the Crown Prince of Austria murder them?"

"Murder?" Rudolf echoed blankly, looking at Mary's face. Drop of blood were spotted in her hair like jewels.

"What else do you think this will be seen as, little Rudolf?" his friend asked. He looked at a smear of blood on his fingers, then licked it off. "You shot her with no reason at all."

"But it will change things..." Rudolf faltered, staring at him. Was that what he truly thought would happen?

"Oh, it will," his friend said. He sounded happy, but terrifyingly so. He was smiling and his eyes were shadowed, barely visible. "Your Empire needed something to push it towards its end, and I think you've done the job perfectly."

"No," Rudolf said, shaking his head. "You don't mean..."

His friend laughed. It was a jarring and frightening sound now. "I do, little Rudolf," he said, leaning across the bed, his hands braced on Mary's body. One on her throat and one on her belly. Stained in her blood. "I hate your damned Empire. I hate it and I hate your father for what they've done to her."

Rudolf stared blankly at him. "To Mary?"

His friend put his head to one side, then smiled, this time showing no teeth. "Oh, Rudolf, all these years and still so blind," he said softly. "I never wanted you, but you were so very useful." He straightened up and spread his arms, gesturing to the body of the girl in Rudolf's bed. "Look, oh Austria, at what your Crown Prince will do on his little hunting trips! Is this man, of Wittelsbach blood and madness, what you want as your leader?"

"Don't!" Rudolf exclaimed, raising his gun.

"Shoot me, then, little Prince." His friend was laughing, arms still spread wide. "You were so easy to fool, to twist, and oh, you listened, mad little Prince of a mad little world with..."

The gun recoiled in his hand, once, twice, three times, four!

Still, his friend stood, smiling.

"Keep the last," he murmured. "I think you may need it."

Then he was gone and Rudolf was alone with the body of the woman, barely more than a child, who he had murdered.

By the candlelight, Rudolf stared at the gun in his hand.

His friend was right.

Hours later, the last bullet was spent.


End file.
